


all messed up and slightly twisted, am i sick or am i gifted?

by notthebigspoon



Series: Stick 'Em Up [1]
Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-16
Updated: 2012-08-16
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:06:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notthebigspoon/pseuds/notthebigspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan steps into the cage with someone two inches taller than he is and at least twenty pounds heavier. The first meaty thud of a fist against against his ribs sends a blossom of blissful nothingness flooding through him. He smiles.</p><p>Title taken from I'm Not Alright by Shinedown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all messed up and slightly twisted, am i sick or am i gifted?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay... while this is the OT3, it's unrelated to previous installments. I was watching Warrior and I had fighting on the brain and my brain decided hey, maybe that's how Theriot deals with shit going wrong. Don't look at me like that, this is my twisted dreamscape, not yours.
> 
> It's probably necessary to know that in this verse, Ryan's wife leaves him in St. Louis and he comes to the Giants without co-pilot. As for the OT3 forming, all they're telling me is that it occurred rather early on in the season. Ryan has clear issues with his position in the relationship and worries about being a third wheel. There's your edumacation for the day.

When Ryan storms out of the house after a screaming fight with Jalynne and Brandon, he doesn't go home. Instead he goes downtown. He parks in the usual parking garage and takes the stairwell instead of the elevator, walks down the street and into the bar. It's already filling up with people getting off of work and ready to drown their troubles. That's not what he's here for. Booze isn't going to take back what was said. It won't magically make everything okay. It won't make Ryan forget.

He walks past the bartender, past the rest rooms to the door at the end of the hall. He flashes a thin black card to a second bouncer. The door opens, revealing the staircase he's traveled so many times before. He jogs down them and the growing swell of noise. He doesn't feel the sense of relief that he was hoping for, not yet. But he can feel a little tension draining through the shouts of the crowd and the rattling of the chain links.

This is what he needs.

He only recognizes one of the two fighters circling each other in the cage. Ryan doesn't know his name... he's a scrawny kid with a syrupy accent that nobody takes seriously until he makes them bleed. Half of his opponents are hauled out of the cage unconscious. Ryan takes a sick pleasure in seeing tonight's contestant go out the same way.

Most nights he comes here during the season, he's just there to watch. He could be recognized and any damage sustained could effect his game. Tonight none of that matters. Ryan needs this... the rush and the pain and the punishment. He pushes through the crowd of spectators and bookies, finding Jay and gripping his shoulder.

“Put me in Jay. Forget these clowns, put me in.”

There's never a question, just a sneering show to let Ryan see how weak Jay thinks he is. Besides, if Ryan takes too much of a beating and he comes up in the lineup soon, it'll give Jay an indication about who he should bet against. He pushes Ryan to the door of the cage, yells at someone else to find someone suitable to pit him against.

Ryan steps into the cage with someone two inches taller than he is and at least twenty pounds heavier. The first meaty thud of a fist against against his ribs sends a blossom of blissful nothingness flooding through him. He smiles.

***

When he does go home, he waters the plants and checks the mail. He erases the entire answering machine without checking it. He plugs his phone in but shuts it off then orders a pizza to tide him through the night, watches infomercials and thinks about ordering one of those ninja blenders. 

There's no comfortable position. Any way he turns there's an ache. Pulling his shirt up shows a host of growing bruises on his torso. The mirror next to the front door shows cuts and bruises across his face. When he turns his back and pulls his shirt up, he has a full length bruise running from his hip up to his shoulder from where he'd been thrown into one of the support struts. He makes sure the lock is in place before flipping the light switch off and hobbling upstairs to shower and go to bed.

He hates sleeping alone. After losing his kids, sometimes that's one of the things about Jo being gone that he misses the most. A warm bed and a body against his own. That's part of what gave him the courage to ask Jalynne and Brandon, one or the other or both of them, to stay during the first few weeks. Alone, he'll stay awake for hours staring at the ceiling, listening to the ambient noise of the city and praying for sleep to come. Tonight, he doesn't have to pray. The pain and the adrenaline crash act as a hell of a sedative.

He doesn't dream.

Granted, he wakes up _thinking_ he's dreaming. Because Jalynne is sitting on the other side of the bed with a look of disapproval on her face. Crawford is standing in the doorway with his arms over his chest, mouth in a thin line. He groans. They don't have problems like this often, usually it's related to Ryan's insecurities and attempts to push them away so that if the relationship ends, he made it happen, not them. That really pisses them off.

“So I'm guessin' I'm in trouble...” He mumbles, struggling to sit up. The bruises have 'come in' overnight and his entire body aches. It feels good though. So good and he stifles a noise of pleasure. Jalynne helps him sit up and scoot back but then she jams her finger into a bruise, hard. Ryan yelps.

“Good, that had better hurt! What the hell did you do? You went off like that last night, didn't answer your phone, you scared us to death!”

“I needed to blow off steam.”

“By getting the shit beat out of you?!” Crawford snarls, stepping one foot forward before stopping. His jaw is clenched and his hands are balled into fists, entire body vibrating with tension. “We've got one day off and you're going to be on the schedule! You can barely move, how the hell are you going to play?”

“I'll be fine. It's just the stiffness. S'long as I soak in the hot tub today and tomorrow before the game, I'll be fine. I've done this before. I don't do it a lot... not that often really.”

“You shouldn't fucking do it at all, especially not during the fucking season. ”

Ryan growls and forces himself to sit up, trying to work past the way that his body screams in protest. He pulls away from Jalynne's outstretched hand, hating himself for the hurt look on her face but ignoring it as much as he can as he hobbles into the bathroom to brush his teeth. His morning routine makes him feel more human but he drags it out twice as long as it usually takes and he thinks they know that.

Crawford looks like he wants to punch somebody. A sick part of Ryan wishes that Brandon would lose it and punch him. Jalynne looks emotional, which Ryan hopes is mostly just hormones but even if it is, it still makes him feel like an utter dick. Sincerely hoping it's not the wrong move, he pushes himself onto the bed on her side, resting his head on her shoulder and making a quiet noise as his body settles.

“Why baby? Why do you do this?” She asks, her voice audibly shaking as a slim arm settles around his shoulders. He makes a relieved, please noise when she starts playing with his hair. It's a fair question.

He doesn't want to answer though. He doesn't want to admit that any time something goes wrong in his life, if he can't go get what he needs, his skin crawls. He doesn't want to tell them that since his wife left him that sometimes it's the only way that he feels in charge. That on some of the days when he misses his kids so bad he can't breathe, knowing he can't do a damn thing about the fact that it will be weeks before he can see them, he has to retake control of his life again. 

He doesn't want to admit knowing that he doesn't have any power in this relationship, knowing that it will be over when they're tired of him and he'll be alone again, eats him alive.

“I know it had something to do with last night.”

“I'm not stupid. This will be over when you say it's over and you two will still have each other. Me? I'll be alone.”

He doesn't expect Jalynne to slap him across the face. The force makes his head spin.

“Fuck you! Fuck you, Ryan! I.... we told you we loved you and _you're_ the one who pushed us away, telling us we didn't know our own minds! You're the one who keeps acting like you're going to change your mind! You think that doesn't scare _us_?” She's crying and it's last night all over again.

It wasn't fair to them, either, if he lets himself think about it. They sit him down and tell him they love him and he doesn't say it back. All he tells them is they can't love him because they love _each other_ , they have a baby coming and how can there be room for him in all of that?

“The first time I went in a cage was in St. Louis. It was right after my divorce had been finalized and it was a dare... Molina tried to stop me but I wouldn't listen. I totally got my ass handed to me but it was a rush... I felt like a fucking king. When I'm in a cage, I don't think about anything... it's.... okay, this is stupid, but that movie Warrior I made you watch? S'like the trainer says. It's a dance. When shit gets too real for me, I go dancing.”

“You could get _hurt_ Theriot. Fuck, you are hurt! Look at you! And that shit ain't regulated... there's nothing to make sure that anyone won't completely destroy you. And god knows what kind of conditions are down there... you could catch something!” Crawford snaps, hands gesturing expansively. “You couldn't have done it _legitimately_?”

“It'd get out. The bosses would make me stop. You know I can't.”

Jalynne hushes them both, holding out a hand to Brandon. He sits down on the bed but he's still angry and won't get any closer to Ryan than he has to. She sighs and takes his hand, squeezing it. “Look... is it the fighting you like or the pain? Or both?”

“Both.” Ryan answers honestly, because she's trying to understand and... fuck, he cares about these two. Loves them, even if he's having a hard time saying it out loud. “The rush... I told you, makes me feel like a king. And the marks. Every time I feel it, it's like a giant fuck you to... to everybody. Hey, look at me, I'm still here and I can promise you there's someone out there worse off than me and I made him that way.”

“There's no way we can give you that?”

“I'm not fighting Stamos.”

“But...” She hesitates and Ryan shakes his head, leaning in and kissing her.

“No but. I'm not hurt... I love him. I love you. I'm not hurting y'all.”

“You're hurting us now with this shit.” Crawford mutters morosely but then he perks, just a little. “You love us?”

“Against all my better judgment.”

“Yeah, Jalynne said that too. I can deal.”

Just like that, the mood is changed. He's still in trouble, he knows that, but the underlying tension to the matter is gone and when Brandon kisses him, he fights not to whimper. He sprawls over Jalynne's lap and rests his head on Brandon's leg, groaning when it pulls at his injures. Brandon's hand is in his hair and Jalynne's is petting gently over his side.

“You're going to stop doing it like this. If... you need to be hurt, we'll figure out how to give that to you. If you need to fight, we find a safer place for you to do it and we go with you.” Jalynne says firmly. Anyone else in the world and he would have lashed out, told them they're not going to run his life but this... this he's okay with. Because he loves them. He'll do what he has to to make this work. “If you need either of those things, you _tell us_. Tell us and we'll make it happen for you. We don't want to take something from you that you need, we just want you to do it safely. If you have to hurt... we want to know that you're going to be okay when it's over. Promise me you'll tell us.”

“I promise.”


End file.
